Aceh

Aceh is a province of Indonesia that is located at the northern end of Sumatra, with Banda Aceh serving as its capital. Aceh was the place where the spread of Islam in Indonesia began, with Islam arriving around 1250, and the region is now considered to be the most Muslim part of Indonesia. From 1496 to 1903, Aceh was ruled by the independent Sultanate of Aceh, which was conquered by the Netherlands in 1903 and annexed into the Dutch East Indies. Aceh agitated for independence both under Dutch and Indonesian rule, and the Free Aceh Movement waged guerrilla warfare against the Indonesian government from 1976 to 2005. During the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, Aceh's western coast was devastated, and 170,000 Indonesians were killed in the disaster. The disaster helped precipitate an agreement between the Indonesian government and the Acehnese rebels, ending the armed conflict. In 2016, Aceh had a population of 5,096,248 people.